


Something's Bound to Begin

by mokuyoubi



Category: Shazam! (2019)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Foster Care, Found Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:54:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21843256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mokuyoubi/pseuds/mokuyoubi
Summary: Rosa and Victor are on their way to pick up their first foster child, and Rosa reflects on the road they've taken to arrive at this point, and if she's capable of fostering a child at all.
Relationships: Rosa Vasquez/Victor Vasquez
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Something's Bound to Begin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snowshus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowshus/gifts).



“Is this the right thing to do?” Rosa twisted the steering wheel between her hands, waiting for the light to turn green.

“Babe.” Victor laid a hand on her thigh. “We got this.”

Rosa’s shoulders sagged, her face falling, lip caught between her teeth. “I really don’t know if _I_ do.” She risked a sidelong look at her husband, and wished she could borrow some of the confidence written clearly on his face. 

“If anyone is qualified to understand what these kids are going through, it’s us.” Victor squeezed reassuringly.

The light turned and Rosa focused on driving instead of responding. It wasn’t that he was wrong. Between the two of them, they’d spent a total of sixteen years in the system, and had experienced the whole gamut of possible foster situations, from the neglect and abuse, which was awful, to the false hope of finally finding a real family, which was worse.

It had seemed so easy and clear, when they’d first met in their early twenties--Rosa waitressing her way through college by picking up classes whenever she could afford them, and Victor fresh out of trade school. What they’d had was as close to love at first sight as Rosa was willing to believe in. 

All their friends warned them both they were moving too fast. Maybe it was all those lonely years searching for a home, but once they found one in each other, it had been impossible to slow down. Within a month they’d moved in together because it made sense, pooling their assets, helping each other past the hurdles they faced. Within a year they were married, because they knew they never wanted to spend another day apart.

Rosa, who’d told herself for years that there was no such thing as true love, more as a defense mechanism than anything, was sometimes struck with disbelief. Was she just kidding herself? Was this all a dream where she’d wake up in five years regretting it all. But Victor was her rock, solid and true, talking her down from those fears. He showed her with every passing day that it was real, and lasting.

In those early years, they daydreamed about the big family they’d create regularly. Walking through the park imagining swinging a child between them, or watching them run to join the others on the playground. At the store letting them add to the cart like they’d never been allowed. Passing a school and knowing they’d be there to cheer on every game, every concert, every award night. Holidays wondering what new traditions they would form.

Of course they were in agreement about fostering, and about how they would parent. As a team, working to undo all the damage of the broken system. Providing a safe space for their children to discover who they were and what they wanted out of life without the constant fear of being shuffled around and cast aside.

There would be no raised voices, no punishments, only consequences. There would be patience and understanding, and most importantly, constancy. There was no promise the children would trust them or come to think of them as family, but they couldn’t waver in their support, no matter what.

But children at that point had just been a distant speck on the horizon. A someday, for when Rosa finally finished school and had a decent-paying job, and Victor had gotten to a place where he could be his own boss.

Now, here they were, comfortable with their income and in the security of their jobs, with a home they’d only dreamed of as children, and specifically chosen for all space for those potential children. This was what they’d been striving for basically since they’d met. And today, they were on their way to go meet their first child.

Except passing thirty no longer seemed like the milestone it once had. Rosa had been waiting to finally feel like she was ready to be responsible for another human being’s life, but the moment never came. More than ever, she marvelled at the men and women who had fostered her--what had made them think they could do it, and was she any better than them, despite her best intentions?

“Oh my God, Victor! Who in their right mind would give me a child?” She should have let him drive, because right now she felt like she was on the verge of a panic attack. “I’ve got anxiety, and a shitty temper, and some days I still don’t even know what I’m doing with my life!”

“Babe--”

“And this girl, she’s only nineteen years younger than me! Like nineteen year old me could have brought a baby into this world and cared for it!”

“Babe, come on, pull over.”

Rosa switched lanes and turned into the lot of a fast food place, and put the van in park. She buried her face in her hands, shaking her head. “I’m a mess.”

“ _Everyone_ is. Who do you even know who has their shit together?” Victor stroked a hand up and down her back as he spoke. “Everyone in this world is just making it up as they go along.”

“But that’s why we’re gonna rock this,” he whispered urgently. “We know our faults, we know we don’t have a clue what we’re doing. But we’re gonna figure it out together. And with this kid. That’s what being a family is--knowing none of us is perfect, but loving each other and sticking it out and making it work anyway.”

Rosa’s laugh came out shakey. She dragged her hands over her eyes as she let them fall. “How’d you get to be so wise?’

Victor’s eyes twinkled when she glanced over at him. “Eh, I think it happened somewhere around the time I married you.” He leaned across the space between their seats to kiss her, a lingering press of their lips. Rosa allowed herself to relax into for several breaths, before he pulled away and whispered again, “We _got_ this.”

After a moment, Ros nodded back, steadier now. She rolled back her shoulders and put the van into drive, and had to swallow back her terror at least eleven more times on the rest of the twenty minute drive. But the point was, she _did_ , and kept going.

*

Mary was seated in a peeling vinyl chair outside the social worker’s office, picking at a hole in the knee of her jeans. She looked so much younger than her twelve years in a mixture of clothing that was both too big and too small for her body. Or maybe it was the way she huddled in on herself, like she was trying to take up as little room as possible, while simultaneously wearing a mutinous expression. 

Rosa remembered that feeling all too well--hoping to fly under the radar but ready to fight if she ended up with the wrong sort of attention. She sat down in the seat opposite while Victor stood at her side, trying to appear as unthreatening as his frame would allow. Rosa had always thought of him more as a giant teddy bear than anything.

“Hey Mary. I’m Rosa, and this is my husband, Victor.”

“I know,” Mary mumbled, without looking up. She hooked her thumb in the hole, tugging hard. “Ms. Potts told me.”

“I know how hard this can be--” Mary made a noise, and Rosa nodded, and swallowed the lump in her throat. She had to remind herself of where she’d been at this age. How little trust she’d had in everyone around her.

All of Mary’s earthly belongings sat bundled in the trashbag in the seat beside her. “They still making you lug all your stuff around in those?”

Mary glanced sidelong at her bag and shrugged. “Yep.”

“Ugh,” Victor groaned. “I hated the way my clothes smelled whenever I got some place new and unpacked them. Went around smelling like trash for days.”

There was a naked curiosity in Mary’s face and she finally looked directly at them, like she couldn’t believe what she’d heard. “You were a foster kid?”

“We both were,” Victor said, jerking his thumb between Rosa and himself.

“Hey, why don’t we stop at Wal-Mart on the way home, and maybe you can pick out something a little less black and plastic?” Rosa suggested. It was crazy, the way her voice came out, so chipper and effortless, like she wasn’t scared shitless that every little thing she said or did could affect the outcome of this child’s life.

After some obvious deliberation, Mary got to her feet, and hefted the bag over her shoulder. She looked at Rosa like she was trying to read her, and Rosa did her best to paint an expression that was kind and confident across her face. Her lips twisted up in consideration, and finally she said. “I think I’d like that.”

Victor offered a hand to take her bag, and Mary handed it over for him to carry. Rosa considered offering a hand, too, for Mary to hold, but no, that was far too soon. But maybe, she thought--as they made their way to the store, as she saw the first hint of Mary’s smile as she got to pick out a rolling case covered in bright splats of paint, when Mary was bold enough to ask for seconds when they went out for pizza after--maybe she could see a day in the future when it would happen.

**Author's Note:**

> I went with Mary being their first for a few reasons--they don't mention any children having aged out of their house yet, which I think they would have, if it had happened, and the actor and actress playing them are fairly young, so I can't see them having been able to do the house for much longer than 5 or 6 years. It just makes sense for Mary to have been the first in that cause, or else they would have been taking in toddlers. I'm not saying it's not possible, but they do seem to take in older kids, ones that are perhaps less likely to be taken by other families. Also in the film, when they're talking about kids running away, and how even Mary did it a couple of times, that whole discussion and what Victor says just makes more sense if it was in the early days of their fostering.
> 
> All that being said, I've not read the comics, so IDK if that makes sense, but my understanding is they're pretty different anyway, so. I hope this works out!


End file.
